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New Yorkers used to writing off our rural cousins as rubes received a cold slap in the face this week from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. A just-released study suggests we could learn a thing or two from their example.

The study is called “Freedom in the 50 States,” which it ranks “based on how their policies promote freedom in the fiscal, regulatory, and personal realms.” Lo and behold, when researchers crunched the numbers, North Dakota came out No. 1 — while the Empire State pulled up the rear “as by far the least free state in the union.” Ouch.

This may help explain the difference in unemployment. For New York, it’s 8.4 percent. In North Dakota, it’s only 3.2 percent.

The rankings suggest something that never seems to occur to Albany: that our problems are largely a result of the heap of regulations that make it hard for competition to thrive and for companies to offer better options for the city and state. New York state is near rock bottom in the openness of its job market and the protection of property rights. Not to mention the high taxes that helped drive 1.2 million New Yorkers to take up residence somewhere else in the last decade.

If anything, the city is even worse. The report lays bare how New Yorkers “feel the heavy hand of government in every area of their lives”: The cigarette taxes. The trans-fat bans. The added income-tax burden. The screwy job market.

Like most New Yorkers, we’re not used to envying other states or towns. So it seems time for a wake-up call when we’re being left in the dust by . . . Fargo.